Skippy said:
idk i find it hard to believe the software and hardware are separate. its psychosomatic synergy. plus when you develop new habits, your brain is literally creating new neural pathways. the ones you create never disappear, but fade out as new ones come to dominate. such is how personality characteristics function through brain elasticity. though i have no doubt that there are certain imprints and conditioned behavior that influence individual idiosyncrasies and "reality tunnels," which stick with us through our lives, but those, too, can and have been changed.
I agree with your last statement, but it seemslike a banal platitude -- as if through such careless misuse its become nominal like most new age thoughts. what works for us changes just like we do. we should be aware of that and open to more than one theory. im also skeptical a map can ever fully be drawn. that has with it the same naive thinking of things like Aristotelian logic, fundamentalism, and when we thought logic and science was going to save us back in the ardour of the enlightenment.
I can ammend what i said earlier by saying dont take it "too" seriously, and hopefully that satisfies you and we can find common ground there, however pedantic that may be.
[member="trenchcoat man"]
[member="Skippy"]
All fine, but I think you've missed the point. And "banal platitude" is the weirdest-looking olive branch I've ever seen.
My contention was with your applying a "Caution" label on a framework a bunch of adults were having a laugh at. You're arguing for an open-mind, and you've offered additional google searches of other Freudians and Mystics, but in their mention, you had not felt the need to say in big bold letters "Yeah, man, but don't take this stuff seriously, either. Also, your religion or your scientific background -- not serious. Really, guy, I hope you're not taking this Star Wars stuff super seriously, because, you know, other things exist, too..." Etc., etc., etc.
And to address your neural pathway bit, I never said they couldn't be changed. The process I was describing was more like training muscles. You have to work at the functions that dominate each of the 4-letter personalities. Odds are, when that dominant function becomes your dominant function, it's because you've A) used it and made it very strong, and
will continue to use it because it's your strongest attribute. It's behavioral. A person isn't -naturally- funny. They become funny by recognizing its value as a self-defense mechanism, finding an audience, continuing to use it, then developing their style, rhythm, timing, etc. You can't just walk into anything, and because of that, few people are interested in starting from scratch. Moving from ISTJ to ENFP isn't a huge stretch, but why would you want to? You didn't get to ISTJ intentionally, but it's based on decisions you've made because they felt right. You fought there, earned it, and developed a rigid self-narrative around it. A Personality disorder is only a personality disorder if you're not living the life you want to live.
As for the map bit, it was never meant to be absolutist. It was a narrative vehicle to recognize a continuously evolving self in a continuously expanding universe perceived from a limited perspective with a limited sensory range. I promise you, you've not got the market cornered on relativistic thought.
So, yeah, in short, in the New Age language we appear to share: I appreciate your excitement over Quantum Psychology, but in your eagerness to foist the prospect of additional gods on us, you've taken a nice big poodoo on the patron saints and ishta-devata that we may have selected for ourselves (I mean, neurosis? Really?). Read your Leary a little harder. You can understand the whole by zooming out or by zooming in. Infinity stretches forever in all directions.
P.S. I'm still dying to know why Jung would be rolling in his grave.